Opening statements for the penalty phase of the Parkland, Fla., school shooter’s trial began Monday in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom.
The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, 23, haspleaded guiltyto 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Prosecutors seek the death penalty, while the shooter’s defense attorneys have asked for life in prison.
According toThe Washington Post, some family members of victims left the courtroom while the recordings played. One woman pleaded for the video to be shut off, theSouth Florida Sun Sentinelreports.
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“We were just sitting — kind of like sitting ducks,” Gilbert, who took the stand, said of the massacre, which went on for about six minutes. “We had no way to protect ourselves.”
The cries of a boy begging, “someone help me,” were also reportedly captured on the recordings, according to theSun Sentinel.
During opening statements Monday, prosecutor Michael Satz, described the shooter, who was 19 at the time of the attack, as “cold, calculative, manipulative and deadly,” according toCNN.
He said days before the shooting, the shooter recorded a video on his cell phone, introducing himself and announcing his intention to become “the next school shooter of 2018,” Satz told the courtroom, per the outlet.
Satz argued numerous aggravating factors made capital punishment an appropriate sentence. He called the mass shooting “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel,” the network reports.
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He said the shooter fired 139 rounds.
“These aggravating factors far outweigh any mitigating circumstances, anything about the defendant’s background, anything about his childhood, anything about his schooling, anything about his mental health, anything about his therapy, anything about his care,” Satz said.
The defense opted to delay its opening statements until later in the trial, per multiple reports.
The shooter’s public defender, Melisa McNeill, did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
After hearing from both sides,the case’s 12-person jurywill be tasked with deciding if the shooter will be sentenced to death or condemned to life in prison, without the possibility of parole, following his guilty plea.
For the shooter to receive the death penalty, all jurors must agree on the sentence.
The victims of the attack were Luke Hoyer, 15; Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Aaron Feis, 37; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Martin Duque, 14; Chris Hixon, 49; Scott Beigel, 35; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Cara Loughran, 14; Peter Wang, 15; Gina Montalto, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; Alaina Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Alex Schachter, 14, and Helena Ramsey, 17. All died from fatal gunshot wounds.
17 others were injured in the shooting.
source: people.com
